Tisbury Building Inspector Cleared on Museum Project

The Tisbury building inspector has been cleared for work on the Martha’s Vineyard Museum project, following a written disclosure to the state ethics commission filed last week.

Selectmen were expected to vote to accept the disclosure at a meeting Thursday.

The disclosure follows a summer of uncertainty over building inspector Ken Barwick’s oversight role on the $24 million project to build a new museum campus at the old Marine Hospital in Vineyard Haven. Museum leaders broke ground on the project in May. At around the same time Mr. Barwick, who lives near the site, was informed in a letter from the state ethics commission that he could not participate on the project since he had a financial interest as an abutter.

The town recruited longtime Island building inspector Leonard Jason Jr. to supervise and sign on demolition work at the site, but Mr. Jason, who is building inspector in Edgartown, Chilmark and Aquinnah, could not take on any more than short-term work. Efforts to recruit a temporary inspector from West Tisbury were unsuccessful.

The museum project is expected to take two years to compete and will involve many inspections and signoffs.

At the selectmen’s meeting early this week, the board said they had learned that the town could cure the problem by accepting Mr. Barwick’s written disclosure, filed Sept. 26.

Museum executive director Phil Wallis attended the meeting and said he was fine with the approach.

“We’re good, if you’re good,” he told the selectmen.“We wanted you all to know, we’d be okay if that’s your preferred route . . . let’s get this going, we want to get the project going.”

Selectman Melinda Loberg noted the unusual situation.

“Even in Boston and overseers of building inspectors haven’t had this happen, so they don’t really have course of action they recommend, and because they are so short-handed statewide — we certainly feel it here on the Island, we don’t have any backup system that we can use,” she said. She continued:

“I’m inclined also to begin moving forward with Ken, with idea that maybe in six months, we check in to see how things are progressing, see if there have been any stumbling blocks for either the museum or Ken in this process, just to make sure we’re on the right track.”

In other business Tuesday, the town agreed to a 15-year memorandum of understanding allowing the Tisbury elementary school to use a town-owned parking lot. The MOU had previously been for only one year.

First Fridays will return to Vineyard Haven in November and December with sidewalk sales and acoustic music. Halloween festivities on Oct. 29 will feature hayrides, a pumpkin scavenger hunt and kids games on Main street. On Halloween, there will be a 15-minute Main street closure for the puppet parade. Main street will be closed from State Road to Union street from 4 to 4:15 p.m.. On Halloween, William street will be closed from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. for trick or treaters, along with surrounding side streets.